The University of Western Australia Motorsport Team (UWAM) attended the Formula SAE Australasia competition held from Thursday 5 December to Sunday 8 December 2024 at Calder Park Raceway, Victoria.

The UWAM Team is a group of diverse and dedicated students that work together to design, build and test an electric, formula-style vehicle to participate in the Formula SAE Australasia competition. The competition is the largest engineering student-design competition in the world, consisting of over 500 teams globally. The concept behind the competition was initiated by the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1979. The competition is centred on a fictitious concept that a manufacturing company has contacted a student design team to develop a small formula-style race car. The prototype vehicle is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item.

The FSAE involves rigorous assessments through various static and dynamic events across three days of competition. There was a total of 3 static events, Business Presentation, Cost Event and Design event and 4 dynamic events, Skidpad, Acceleration, Autocross, Endurance and Efficiency. This year, the UWAM team focused on achieving one goal, to complete all dynamic events with a ‘from scratch’ new build FSAE car. Overall, the team achieved this milestone and beyond with impressive results across all 7 events. In the last decade of competition, UWAM have struggled to complete all the dynamic events.

This year, the team was adamant on executing every detail of the competition including the lead up preparation, a feat which has taken over 5 years and the involvement of over 200 UWA Students to achieve. The litmus test began with preparation in Victoria where a team of 12 UWAM members underwent crucial testing in rural Victoria. The testing involved extra driver training, testing the car battery and testing the car in its competition. The vehicle was heavily refined with the race engineering team refining the damper settings and tyre pressures to maximise each individual driver's comfort and performance window. The 10 days of rigorous testing resulted in crucial refinements in key performance components of the team, the drivers and the car's set up. These refinements were critical in UWAM’s success at the 2024 FSAE Competition across the 4 key dynamic events.

The Skidpad event involves driving the car in a figure 8 to showcase the car’s cornering ability. Despite an early rain delay, the team made quick adjustments that proved pivotal in adapting to the weather conditions which resulted in the team earning 3rd place. The next dynamic events proved to be challenging with the weather conditions threatening the team’s success in the Acceleration and Autocross testing. Despite the challenges on the track, the UWA Motorsport team were able to secure 6th place in both dynamic events. The Endurance event involved riding the car over 22km across a track, shared between 2 drivers. This pivotal event has the most points on offer for the team to collect to contribute to their overall score. Historically, the team have been unable to complete in this event for the past 11 years. However, a rock-solid start from the first driver of the UWA Motorsport team set the foundation for success with the second driver finishing off the race and crossing the finish line, a decisive moment for the UWA Motorsport team for completing all events for the first time in 11 years.­

Congratulations to UWA Motorsport Team and all the UWA students involved in the creation of the race car.

Overall results of UWA Motorsport performance at the 2024 FSAE Australasian Competition: